What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Westminster for a comeback? (With apologies to Yeats.)

Tony Blair praised Theresa May as a ‘very solid, sensible person’. So much for his left-wing credentials! [Image: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images].

It’s Tony Blair. How godawfully depressing.

Here’s a man whose ‘Third Way’ ruined the Labour Party, driving voters away in their millions, turning socialism into a dirty word (by association – there were precious few socialists in a Blair cabinet), and eventually turfing the party out of office for more than six years – so far.

He talks about the Progressive Left but he’s as much a product of the Reactionary Right as, for example, David Cameron, who worked very hard to follow the Blairite model of neoliberal economic policies leavened with social reform.

The philosophy seemed to be, “Give ’em gay marriage and they’ll sell themselves into slavery”, and it seems to have been correct.

Margaret Thatcher, whose project during the 1980s was entirely geared towards the destruction of the UK’s industrial base and erosion of its trade unions, in order to destroy the economic leverage enjoyed by working people in the 1970s, considered Mr Blair’s New Labour to be her greatest achievement.

And now he’s back, claiming that the country needs him because Jeremy Corbyn – the most popular Labour leader, possibly in 50 years – is… not a “nutter”, as Mr Blair insists he has been misquoted as saying, but at least “mistaken”.

He says Labour has been “captured by the far left for the first time in the party’s history”. What utter drivel.

Jeremy Corbyn is a centre-left politician. If he were of the far left, he would be demanding the nationalisation of all industry and the UK’s reduction to single-party state status. He isn’t.

Clem Attlee was more left-wing than Mr Corbyn and his government gave us the National Health Service that everybody claims they love. Wilson and Callaghan were closer to Communism.

But Mr Blair needs to position himself and he wants the “centre left” label that belongs to Mr Corbyn.

Otherwise he would have to admit that he is a right wing politician – and that would play very poorly with his target audience.

But he gives himself away with his admission that he thinks Theresa May is “a very solid, sensible person” – she isn’t. She is a weak leader, from a line of weak Tory leaders, who cannot stand up for a single policy if a business leader opposes it.

Still, her politics is clearly the kind Mr Blair prefers and, after all, Margaret Thatcher liked him and David Cameron copied him. So why doesn’t he clear off and join the Conservative Party instead of haunting Labour?

To sum up, Tony Blair is not a representative of the Progressive Left or Centre-Left. That space is occupied by Jeremy Corbyn. Blair belongs to the reactionary, regressive Right and is trying to hoodwink us all into believing otherwise.

About the only thing he has said that anyone in Labour could support is that the party “has a historic duty to try to represent people in this country who need our representation desperately”.

But look at the choice of topic with which he has decided to re-enter politics: He has opted to take a view of Brexit that is deliberately antagonistic to the established Labour Party position.

Mr Corbyn has said that the referendum result will bind the Labour Party and its duty now is to work for the best possible parting from the European Union; Mr Blair wants people to think there is still a chance the split could be halted.

But look at what he says and you’ll see it’s all bluster. He doesn’t offer any guidance on how the people are to register their change of heart.

He says: “It can be stopped if the British people decide that, having seen what it means, the pain-gain, cost-benefit analysis doesn’t stack up… Either you get maximum access to the single market, in which case you’ll end up accepting a significant number of the rules on immigration, on payment into the budget, on the European court’s jurisdiction. People may then say, ‘Well, hang on, why are we leaving then?’

“Or alternatively, you’ll be out of the single market and the economic pain may be very great because, beyond doubt, if you do that you’ll have years, maybe a decade, of economic restructuring,” so even ‘Leave’ voters “would eventually “look at this in a practical way, not an ideological way”.

And what would they do next?

There is no mechanism for the people to register any desire to change their collective mind if the politicians in Westminster choose not to allow it – and Westminster has said there will be no further referendum.

Why should there be?

We know most of the people were cheated, one way or another, by snake-oil salesmen like Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove who promised untold riches and are delivering debt.

But plenty of us were saying this at the time and those who voted in ignorance should know that it is no excuse.

Ultimately, Mr Blair has nothing to say that hasn’t been said already – by Conservatives and by Liberal Democrats.

If anybody wants a real alternative, it is offered by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour.

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13 thoughts on “Oh bloody hell, here’s Tony Blair”

Maybe having failed in getting rid of JC those MPs still loyal to the dark destroyer millionaire have invited him back so that they can vote and follow him like a load of lemmings. To be frank I thought we had seen the last of that two faced conservative untrustworthy lying war monger and his shady pals.

His dishonest, manipulative, murdering behaviour has bought the party into disrepute and should be banned under Membership Rules, Clause 1 section 8

8. No member of the party shall engage in conduct
which in the opinion of the NCC is prejudicial, or in
any act which in the opinion of the NCC is grossly
detrimental to the party.

This man’s failure to be honest to the nation and involvement in the death of millions of innocent Men, Women and Children and his failure to adhere to the Nolan Principles should ensure that he is BANNED FOR LIFE from the Labour Party…

It is a very great shame that so many voted in ignorance but they are not ignorant now and Labour should be pushing for a review of the whole exit. That does not mean that I want Blair back in however. Surely, when we look at the loss of our neighbours and our closest and largest markets, the enormous cost of Brexit and the fact that we seem to be spiraling ever more into debt because of it, we should be fighting to stop the madness.

I could not agree more, with the editor’s comments. ‘But Mr Blair needs to position himself and he wants the “centre left” label’ that belongs to Mr Corbyn.
As I guess that’s triangulation, with an addon. The add on, being shift the public’s perception of Jeremy Corbyn’s policies to the extreme left, so Blair can take up the position that really belongs to the Labour Part leader.
‘Otherwise he would have to admit that he is a right wing politician – and that would play very poorly with his target audience’. Yes, his government introduced a lot of policies, which appeared only slightly against, or for, the interests of most voters, but, in reality, opened the door for David Cameron to extend them in ways the Labour Party would never have supported. To what degree the upper echelons of Blair’s Cabinet (and who amongst them) new that was going to happen is an open question. And I suspect we’ll never get an answer to it. So we will have to look to the consequences of his policies as the next best piece of evidence

But he gives himself away with his admission that he thinks Theresa May is “a very solid, sensible person” – she isn’t. She is a weak leader, from a line of weak Tory leaders, who cannot stand up for a single policy if a business leader opposes it.
It’s clear to see where his loyalties lie, when he praises the leader of the onservative Party and abuses the leader of the Labour Party. If he did say the word n—–r, is that not cause for banning him from Labour Party, at least until an inquiry has looked into the allegation. Lots of Labour Party members were disenfranchised /disqualified on for far less and on far less evidence.

Good summation Mike, perhaps he doesn’t think he has managed to completely alter the labour party into a right wing party like the american democrats who are the to the right but supposed to be the liberal party in America.

This lying piece of do-dah needs to remember how much he cost the Labour Party last time round and do it a very big favour and shut the **** up.
The snake in the grass is back, the old man’s gone daft in the head and doesn’t know what part he’s playing or which set he should be on in his latest “comeback”.

Well agree with everything you all have said. No way do we go back to that type of political crazy crap. This is yet another Tory ploy to undermine JC & will totally destroy labour for good. No way would he be voted for except for the like of TW & the rest of the ‘chicken coup’ Never again